Emotional Maturity Levels

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Any emotion arises in response to satisfaction-dissatisfaction of any value, need, desire, etc. When satisfaction occurs, positive emotions arise, with dissatisfaction, negative ones. And since most of these same needs can be satisfied only with the help of something from the outside, this implies the most important role of emotions in human life. It is through the emotional sphere that the "bunch" of the internal system of values-needs (which, according to academic psychologists, is the core of a person's personality) takes place with the external world

It is emotions that signal which need is satisfied and which is not (the evaluative and signaling function of emotions). It is emotions that provide "psychological energy" for activity (the function of emotions that mobilizes and regulates activity). It is with the help of emotions that positive and negative experiences are consolidated (adaptive and trace-forming function of emotions). Probably, one should name another function of emotions that is not mentioned in academic textbooks - it is emotions that give a person a sense of life, beingness, and its fullness. A person who does not experience emotions does not seem to live.

Often, the entire human psyche is divided into two spheres - rational and emotional. Both of these areas are equally important, they are like two legs on which a person “stands”. If one of them is not sufficiently developed, then the personality will be limp. Unfortunately, our Western civilization has greatly devalued the importance of emotion in comparison with thinking, which could not fail to say at today's level of psychological health.

So, emotional development is no less important in human life than intellectual development. Therefore, the level of emotional maturity of a person is an important characteristic of his ability to fully live this life.

Unfortunately, the area of emotional maturity of a person's personality has practically not been subjected to detailed study today, and there are not so many theories of emotional maturity. I will cite one of them, in my opinion, the most noteworthy, the model of Claude Steiner (one of the founders of transactional analysis). I warn you right away, in comparison with the original, the names of each level of maturity have been slightly changed (in Steiner this is called the levels of emotional literacy).

1. Emotional block. The level of development of emotions when the emotions themselves are not felt. The fact that emotions are still present can be determined by the appearance of an impulse for some actions, and resistance to others. These emotions can block or force to perform any actions, but the emotional urge itself is not realized (or, more correctly, it is not felt). It is simply impossible to do something, or vice versa, it is impossible to stop any action that occurs in spite of a conscious decision. From the outside, we can say that a person feels something by his intonations, facial expressions, behavior, while the person himself does not feel anything that he could call emotions. He could also describe this state as emptiness, numbness or frozenness. It happens that such "imperceptible" emotions accumulate uncontrollably, and lead to emotional outbursts and explosions, after which there is a return to the "insensible" state before another such explosion.

Self-help: learning to recognize bodily sensations (pains, clamps, tensions, involuntary movements, etc.) during emotional blocks. A diary form might help:

Dancing, music, modeling, etc., help, in general, everything that encourages bodily expression and the transition to the next level of emotional maturity - bodily.

2. Body sensations. Emotions are experienced as bodily sensations (for example, fear as heartbeat or sweating, depression as tightness in the chest, anger as discomfort in the stomach, etc.). Emotion as an emotion itself is not felt at the same time

Self Help: A Vocabulary of Emotional Body Sensations

Muscle relaxation, yoga and other practices that help relax the body and make contact with it are helpful.

3. Chaotic experiences. Emotions are felt as a certain level of diffuse emotional energy, but at the same time it is impossible to determine what emotion is experienced, to distinguish emotions, to verbalize. In general, instead of specific emotions, a feeling of emotional mass and tension is experienced.

Self-Help: Compiling a Dictionary of Emotions

Emotion diary - during the analysis of the day, write down your main feelings that you experienced during each hour or half an hour (you can write it down throughout the day.). Learning to verbally express emotions (to define what I feel and call it), drawing emotions (or other artistic expression of them).

4. Discrimination of emotions. At this level, emotions are recognized and distinguished, the events that caused them, accompanying thinking and desires, are determined. A person can simultaneously experience several different emotions, while being aware and distinguishing between these emotions. But at this level of emotional maturity, strong emotions distort the rational assessment, influence the actions performed, etc.

Self-help: Learning various ways of managing and experiencing emotions (there are so many of these ways and they are so often described that I will refrain from even listing them here).

5. Responsibility for your emotions. Internal locus of control of emotions: the feeling that it is not events that make me feel, but that it is I feel in response to events. Emotions do not affect the rational assessment of the situation or the actions performed. For today, this is a very high level of emotional maturity. A person here should learn not only to experience their emotions, but also to understand others - empathy.

6. Empathy. "Feeling" of what other people are experiencing, with a clear separation of "our" and "someone else's" emotions, not experiencing other people's emotions instead of our own, but to feel them. A very high level of emotional maturity, corresponding to the level of an experienced practical psychologist. For further emotional development, it is worth learning to "exchange" emotions with other people

7. Emotional interaction. A person is able not only to feel other people's emotions, but also to consciously fully interact with others on an emotional level. Whether there is any further emotional development, neither Steiner, much less I know.)))

Finally, I would like to give a brief description of emotional maturity:

Emotional maturity in relation to yourself:

1.) the ability to recognize, distinguish, name and express their emotions;

2.) the ability to take responsibility for your emotions on yourself;

3.) the ability to regulate your emotional state;

4.) striving for further emotional development.

Emotional maturity in relation to others:

1.) the ability to "feel" the emotions of other people, while separating their own and others' emotions;

2.) the ability to be aware of the influence of other people's emotions on themselves and their emotions on others;

3.) the ability to empathize with others;

4.) the ability to emotionally interact with others.